According to the prior art, telecommunication network construction entails configuring every new network element so that all the network elements can be controlled and managed at a central master end, such as an element management system.
However, configuring a large number of network elements requires much manpower and takes much time; hence, the costs incurred in the manpower and time thus spent increase with the quantity of the network elements installed. In addition, the owner has to pay for the training of the staff engaged in constructing the network elements.
According to the prior art, an increase in the demand for the network elements is accompanied by increased staffing and lengthy construction. However, in the long run, the huge demand for manpower is transient, while lengthy construction turns away prospective users and slows down the growth of telecommunication networks. Hence, the aforesaid techniques are pricey and inefficient.
Although the aforesaid drawbacks of the prior art can be overcome as soon as automatic configuration is carried out with software after the network elements have undergone physical wiring construction. But before the automatic configuration process, a network element must to gain the IP address information of the element management system server and an IP address available for the network element. As a result, the aforesaid construction processes are pricey and inefficient when carried out in a conventional way.
To overcome the aforesaid drawbacks of the prior art, the present invention provides an IP address allocation method which suits Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) multicast packets such that automatic telecommunication network construction can be carried out without any DHCP server but in a way which covers different IP address domains.